


The Warlock And His Wretch

by VileThing (EffingEden)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Choose Your Own Adventure, Father/Son Incest, M/M, Magic, Magic-Users, Reader-Interactive, suggest a kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 03:41:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6453967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EffingEden/pseuds/VileThing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warlocks are infertile, sacrificing their potential progeny so they may manipulate magic, weave it as they will. Everyone knows this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Warlock And His Wretch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LoathsomeSinner (CheshireSparrowe)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheshireSparrowe/gifts).



> Written for [Loathsome Sinner](http://loathsomesinner.tumblr.com/) and crossposted on [my tumblr.](http://vilething.tumblr.com/twahw)

“You sure ‘bout betting what you don’t want to lose, Cor? Can’t take back a bet after the dice roll…”

I glared down at the pile of coin and a week’s work of necklaces and jewelled trinkets piled high before Grist, annoyed he felt the need to ask. My luck had been all spent climbing through windows and running from city guards, it seemed, and had left me none to spare for tonight.

I had lost everything I’d risked my freedom, my life to steal in the hours since this game had begun. Now it was drawing to an end. I was turning my last gamble over and over in my hand. Something my mother had worn all her life. As a child, I had thought it was copper, but when I had taken it from her body, I found it was painted to hide the truth. It was gold. The crest had been hammered out, so I suspected it was something a lordling had “lost” during my mother’s whoring days, but I wondered at times why she hadn’t sold it if that were so. We could have done with the coin it would have fetched… but I had no means to ask her, now.

“Maybe you’re right,” I mused, flexing my voice so I sounded half-convinced. “My dignity is in bad enough shape, as-is.”

His gaze darted to the ring, and his tongue flicked along his lip. “… Or, I could be charitable. That can’t get more than a half-lect at any fence, but I’ll put a full one in the pot. Double it’s worth if you win this go.”

I rubbed my thumb other the hammered face for the hundredth time this evening, a nervous habit though told anyone sharp-eyed enough how wretched I was feeling. It had started as theatrics, but in this moment it was closer to truth than was comfortable. I wasn’t so attached to the ring that I’d lose sleep for gambling it. I had loved my mother as fierce as she loved me, but metal was metal. It reminded me of her, but there were other things that did that, too. And having a lect was better than not. _If_ I could win this roll.

“A full lect?” I echoed, forcing more greed into my tone than I truly felt. “… I know a fence who’d give me that, for a ring like this…”

“Take it to that fence then,” Grist say with a gracious shrug. He knew it was a lie, if he even suspected I was telling the truth he’d be angry. No, he’d say it as a bluff to try to make the pot sweeter, but refused to give that power to me. I hadn’t thought it would work, but it was a trick someone like Grist employed. If I had simply agreed, he would be suspicious.

He smirked when I scowled at him. “It’s a walk,” I grumbled, dropping the ring into the table. Grist added another heavy coin, and lifted his brow at me. I picked up the dice and shook them in my hands. I held my breath and let them scatter on the table.

“Skord’s _breath_!” I snarled. Seven eyes stared unblinking up at me. That was my worst roll yet. Grist laughed, throwing himself back in his chair. “Are these weighted?” I asked, exasperated. I was sure they weren’t, I’d held them all, and half of them were mine. Grist kept laughing. I picked up my tankard and muttered, “Whore’s luck,” into the foam before I drank.

“I’ll keep it for you to win back next week,” Grist promised when his mirth subsided, though his grin stayed.

I grunted, not sure if I should be grateful or not and wondering if it was a lie.

“You’re luck’s poxed. Better ask a hedgewitch for an ointment, ey?” As he said that, the tavern door opened. Grist’s gaze had moved from my face to over my shoulder towards the door and his broke-tooth grin fell like a roof slate in a storm, a slack expression of surprise all that was left behind. I tensed on instinct. I was expecting a gang from the Warrens, or a troop of guards. What he hissed was not at all as I expected. “Cor, look there. Warlock.”

Here? Down here in the grime? Not even their outcasts came this deep into Undertown. There was slumming, then there was suicidal.

The low, usual noise of The Festering Pit died off, all attention focused on one point, one person. I couldn’t look around without twisting in my seat and looking the fool, so I didn’t, though I yearned to. The way Grist’s gaze flicked from me to the figure in the doorway made the need all the greater, but I was the master of my own self.

The warlock spoke in a voice of ice and spider-webs, laced with power. “I come to reclaim property belonging to me. Keep to your seats and none shall be harmed.”

I’d never heard of a warlock hunting down a thief - but then I’d never heard of anyone with balls big enough to rob from a warlock. Neither had Grist, by the confused fear on his face. No one said a word. No one moved.

I waited a moment, for the sound of the guilty one panic and bolt. Everyone seemed to be waiting for that - even the warlock. After a dozen heartbeats, nothing had happened. Then I heard the warlock move away from the door, moving with a hunter cautious confidence deeper into the room. Tension prickled the back of my neck, down my spine as those footsteps wound their way around mismatched tables, closer and closer.

The fear that showed on Grist’s face told me it was him the Warlock was coming for. The frantic, nervous way he looked between me and the approaching magic-weaver. He looked ready to run when those steps came to a stop behind my chair. His scent was almost like the shore, unusual yet unmistakable. There was ambergris mixed with it, and a rich tobacco.

“You. Stand up.” I watched how the last colour in Grist’s haggard face drained, how his eyes widened, but he didn’t move. Why didn’t he move?

A hand closed on my nape, pinching hard, cool bands of metal and even cooler fingers biting, dragging me sideways off my seat. I yelped in surprise and struggled not to fall to the floor - which was helped by another hand catching the front of my shirt and twisting to get a sure grip. I still staggered, my body bumping into the Warlock as he forced me to turn to face him. What I saw made my insides turn to ice.

He had dark hair, long and straight with a few licks of silver among the darkness. His mouth was thin and twisted in displeasure. His features looked alarmingly familiar, striking a new, different fear in me though I was too panicked to figure out why. But his eyes, his eyes. They were a solid black. No iris, no whites. Just terrible blackness.

I’d never seen a Warlock in person before - but no stories I’d heard of them mentioned their eyes.

His expression turned vicious, an insane grin that bared his teeth. I thought he was about to bite me, but instead he said in a purr like a river freezing, “And here I was thinking you were just an old _ring_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment if you enjoyed and want to see it continued. Want to see a particular nasty happen to Cor? Ask it. Let's see how long he can survive at his father's hands.


End file.
